DSLR vs. Tablet Photo Booths

What’s the difference between these two types of photo booths

The two most popular types of photo booths are ones featuring a DSLR camera and a tablet’s front camera. DSLR stands for digital single lens reflex and it is one of the more popular types of digital cameras today. Most tablet-based photo booths use an iPad integrated with its own photo booth app.

What is a DSLR camera? What is unique about them?

DSLR cameras can be further distinguished into two categories, a crop sensor, and a full-frame camera. A full-frame camera gets its name from the sensor being pretty much the same size as the classic 35mm film frame (24x36mm) whereas crop sensor cameras generally have smaller ones. Both can use all types of interchangeable lenses, ranging from entry-level lenses to high-end lenses, capable of creating crystal clear images.

How is the camera on an iPad?

Phones and tablets seemingly get better every year as far as image quality goes. They are still far behind cameras. Understandably so, they are designed to help us with a million things whereas cameras are just designed to create photos (and videos.) Tablet-based photo booths use the front camera which is usually of lower quality than the primary camera. These cameras need a lot of light to make quality images because of how tiny the lens and sensor are.

What about lenses?

Camera and other tech companies have always used megapixels as the main number for a camera or device’s image quality. It’s just not that simple. A 30-megapixel camera is pretty expensive and high quality but all those dollars will be wasted if you put a cheap and small lens on it. Additionally, bigger sensors allow for greater detail, sharpness, and depth of color.

Conclusion

Please don’t take this like I am bashing on phones and tablets here. They are amazing tools to capture photos. In fact, one of my favorite photography quotes (I can’t remember who said it) is: “The best camera is the one you have.” It is totally true, I use my phone and tablet all the time to take pictures because of how handy it is. But comparing tablets with DSLR cameras in photo booths when it comes to image quality and client experience is just not fair. The tablet is designed to do a lot of things well whereas a DSLR camera is strictly designed to take exceptional photos.